Liberating Genomics To All

Clear Labs translates rich and vast genomic data into insights that help inform and direct genomic surveillance.

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Our story

Clear Labs’ turnkey next generation sequencing platform accelerates outcomes and improves accuracy - from food-borne pathogens to infectious diseases.

2025

January 2025

Clear Labs Secures $30 Million in Series D Financing

Clear Labs, provider of fully automated, next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms for turnkey diagnostics, has secured $30 million in its Series D financing. The round was led by a strategic investor, along with participation from existing investors, including Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Felicis, GV, HBM Genomics, Khosla Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Nimble Ventures, Redmile Group, Wing Venture Capital, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.
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2023

November 2023

Clear Labs launches Clear Dx™ FlexPro: Wastewater (SARS-CoV-2)

Clear Labs further expands its offering to include whole genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater samples to support wastewater surveillance efforts.
May 2023

Clear Labs launches Clear Dx™ Microbial Surveillance WGS

Clear Labs expands its offering to include whole genome sequencing of bacterial pathogens, a critical step toward faster outbreak detection.
Learn About Clear Dx™ Microbial Surveillance WGS
2022

December 2022

Clear Labs inks distribution partnership with Illumina to include short read sequencing-by-synthesis (SBS) technology in its fully integrated platform

The partnership expands the utility of the Clear Dx™ platform to other sequencing applications.
2021

October 2021

Clear Labs receives NPIP approval

Clear Safety™ Salmonella is approved by the National Poultry Improvement Plan for use in detecting Salmonella in poultry and poultry processing environments.
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January 2021

Clear Labs launches groundbreaking solution for surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 and its mutations.

These variants, as well as future mutations, can now be identified in real-time by a revolutionary new rapid WGS workflow solution launching today from Clear Labs, provider of the only fully-automated next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform for turnkey diagnostics.
Learn About Clear Dx™
2020

September 2020

Clear Labs Granted EUA by FDA for SARS-CoV-2 Novel Descriptive Diagnostic

Clear Labs announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted the company Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for its Clear Dx™ SARS-CoV-2 novel descriptive diagnostic. The system extends available options for labs to scale infectious disease diagnostic testing.
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2019

September 2019

Clear Safety™ Listeria receives AOAC certification

In inclusivity and exclusivity evaluations to test the sensitivity and specificity of the Clear Safety™ Listeria method, the platform performed as well or better than the relevant methods from FDA’s Bacterial Analytical Manual and FSIS’s Microbiology Laboratory Guidebook.
July 2019

Clear Safety™ Listeria announced

Clear Labs announced new Listeria testing and Environmental Mapping capabilities on its Clear Safety™ platform, offering a three-in-one solution for Listeria detection, persistence monitoring and visualizing contamination incidents.
March 2019

Clear Labs inks distribution partnership with Oxford Nanopore Technologies to offer a fully integrated sample to insight solution leveraging long read technology

As part of the agreement, Clear Labs implements ONT's long-read sequencing technology platform into a fully automated, highly rapid NGS platform.
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2018

November 2018

Clear Safety™ Salmonella receives AOAC certification

To receive the approval, AOAC evaluated Clear Safety™’s methods and found that the Clear Dx™ platform performs as well or better than the FDA’s Bacterial Analytical Manual and FSIS’s Microbiology Laboratory Guidebook.
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July 2018

Clear Safety™ launches

Clear Safety™ is announced, becoming the only automated food safety platform for routine pathogen detection. By using Clear Safety™, companies and labs can use next-generation sequencing on their own to modernize their food safety management systems
Learn About Clear Safety™
April 2018

NGS sequencing ready for remote deployment

Clear Labs announced a pilot program for routine food safety testing. Until then, food labs and brands relied heavily on PCR or antigen-based methods for on-site testing.
2017

March 2017

Clear Labs moves to its new home

To accelerate product development, Clear Labs continued to expand, requiring the company to move to a larger office with more space and technology capabilities. The company is currently located at 3565 Haven Ave #2, Menlo Park, CA 94025 and has over 50 teammates.
2015

November 2015

First customer onboarded

The onboarding of Clear Labs’ early customer marked the first use of NGS technology in a commercial, regulated setting. Since then, demand for NGS technologies has grown globally in the food safety space, and Clear Labs currently has customers across North America, Europe, and Asia.
September 2015

Clear Transparency introduced

In addition to announcing its $6.5M Series A round, Clear Labs unveiled its Clear Transparency products: food authenticity testing, GMO screening, microbiome testing, and whole-genome sequencing. With that announcement, NGS officially entered the food safety market.
Learn About Clear Transparency
2014

June 2014

Largest molecular food database created

To bring NGS to a broader market, Clear Labs needed to create the world’s largest food database. Today, our database has millions of entries in its database, far exceeding any other food database, including that of the U.S. government.
January 2014

Clear Labs founded

Genomic sequencing was at a critical inflection point. Costs were dropping faster than Moore’s Law, and Clear Labs co-founder Sasan Amini saw the opportunity to develop applications for next-generation sequencing technologies beyond the clinical market to help food brands mitigate recalls and reduce foodborne illness and outbreak. So, he brought together experts in genomics, computer science, biology, and engineering, and Clear Labs was born.

Our Team

Clear Labs was founded in 2014 by a multidisciplinary team of genomic scientists, lab automation experts, software engineers and bioinformaticians to liberate genomics to all.

Leadership Board of Directors Advisory Board

Sasan Amini

Sasan combined his academic expertise and passion for healthy living when he co-founded Clear Labs with a mission to set a new paradigm for liberating genomics in clinical and applied markets. Prior to serving as the CEO of Clear Labs, he worked in the Advanced Research department at Illumina. Sasan earned his PhD in Genomics from Princeton and holds multiple patents and publications in the field.

Sasan Amini

Co-Founder and CEO Show Bio

Ramin Khaksar

Ramin leads the vision and strategy for teams of dedicated scientists across 5 divisions at Clear Labs. He brings extensive experience from the industry, government and academia. Previously, he was CEO of Dapco, a Biotech R&D company and served as Sr Advisor to the Ministry of Health. Ramin was Associate Professor and Chair of Food Science at SBMU. He has published over 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Ramin Khaksar

Co-Founder, CSO, and COO Show Bio

Edward Fan

Ed is an accomplished healthcare business leader with experience across the banking, diagnostics, biotech and pharma industries. He was previously an investment banker at J.P. Morgan and Lazard, where he advised healthcare companies on IPOs, M&A, and other financial matters. Ed has also held operating roles at Sanofi, Werfen, and Shire and advised IVD companies at Boston Biomedical Consultants.

Edward Fan

Chief Financial Officer Show Bio

Henrik Gehrmann

Henrik is an enthusiastic engineering leader and entrepreneur with 20+ years experience creating Software Applications. He earned his Master’s Degree in Copenhagen and has since been working at several Silicon Valley startups focusing on Enterprise SaaS. His expertise includes Cloud-based Systems, Data Analytics, and UX Design. He enjoys building great teams and leading projects through the product lifecycle.

Henrik Gehrmann

Senior VP of Engineering Show Bio

Mostafa Ronaghi

Mostafa Ronaghi is an experienced life sciences entrepreneur and was involved in the start-up of four life sciences companies including Avantome (acquired by Illumina); NextBio, a search engine for life science data (acquired by Illumina); ParAllele Bioscience (acquired by Affymetrix, Inc.), and Pyrosequencing AB, which was renamed to Biotage in 2003.

Mostafa was a principal investigator at Stanford University from 2002 until 2008 and focused on the development of novel tools for molecular diagnostic applications. He earned his Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. He holds more than 50 pending and issued patents and has written more than 70 peer-reviewed publications in journals and books.

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Sasan Amini

Sasan Amini has a passion for applying new technologies to solve real world problems and promote healthy living. After many years of experience in the life sciences, he decided to combine his passion and expertise to start Clear Labs with the mission of making food transparent. After getting his PhD in Genomics from Princeton, Sasan spent a few years in the Advanced Research department at Illumina, working on the most state-of-the-art Genomics approaches and platforms.

Sasan received his B.Sc. in Biotechnology from the University of Tehran, where he entered as a gold medalist in the International Biology Olympiad. While in college, he served as the youngest Board member of the Iranian National Biology Olympiad Committee and authored a problem book on Mendelian Genetics which has been re-printed 10 times over the past decade. He holds multiple patents and publications in the field.

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Gaurav Garg

Gaurav Garg is a Founding Partner of Wing Venture Capital. Gaurav is a board member at several private technology companies, including Cohesity, Shape Security, and Instart Logic. He incubated and helped build FireEye, Ruckus Wireless, and Jasper into significant businesses, serving as a board member at each for more than ten years. Gaurav has served on the boards of several other companies, including some that staged successful exits via IPOs or acquisitions such as NetScaler and MobileIron. He also worked extensively with, and co-sponsored investments in, Aruba and RingCentral. Gaurav was a partner at Sequoia Capital from 2001 to 2010, and a Special Limited Partner at the firm from 2010 to 2012.

Prior to joining Sequoia, he founded Redback Networks in 1996, and served as a board member and Senior Vice President of Product Management. Prior to Redback Networks, he held various engineering positions at SynOptics and Bay Networks.

Gaurav holds a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and a BS in Computer Science, all from Washington University in St. Louis.

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Greg Yap

Greg Yap is a partner at Menlo Ventures and focuses on life science and digital health technology investments.

Prior to Menlo, Greg was at Illumina Ventures as entrepreneur-in-residence, where he focused on new investments related to genomics. Previously, Greg was CEO and cofounder of Biodesy, a next-generation protein analysis company, and then CEO and cofounder of PyrAmes, a digital health remote monitoring company. Greg also worked at Roche Diagnostics / Ventana, where he led a global market-leading cancer diagnostic assay business, serving 20 million patients and delivering $500 million revenue per year. Greg’s operating experience also includes roles as the first healthcare entrepreneur-in-residence at GE, chief operating officer at Cellpoint Diagnostics, an early liquid biopsy startup, vice president and general manager for genetics and molecular diagnostics at Affymetrix, and consultant for McKinsey & Company.

Greg received his bachelor’s degree in molecular biology (summa cum laude) from Princeton University, and his MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business

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Ming Fang

Ming Fang is a Managing Director at Redmile Group, LLC, a healthcare-focused investment firm.

Prior to joining Redmile in 2016, Ming worked in the healthcare space as an investor at Safeguard Scientifics, a consultant at McKinsey & Company and ZS Associates, and an operator at Gilead Sciences.

Ming received a B.A. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and an MBA in Finance...

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Kevin Keegan

Kevin is an experienced clinical diagnostics executive with a track record of leading successful product portfolios. He currently leads the molecular diagnostic platform business at Becton Dickinson.

Prior to BD, Kevin was the GM of Oncology at Illumina. Prior to Illumina, he had leadership roles at Hologic and Alere (now part of Abbott).

Kevin earned his BS in Molecular Biol...

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Melissa Miller

Dr. Melissa Miller is the James D. Folds Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She is board-certified in medical microbiology and is the Director of the UNC Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Microbiology Laboratories. In addition, she is the program director of the fellowship in medical and public health microbiology at UNC.
Dr. Miller holds a BS in Medical Technology from Jacksonville University and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. She completed a clinical fellowship in medical and public health microbiology at UNC. Dr. Miller is an active member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology (PASCV), and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Her extensive national service includes chairing the ASM Clinical and Public Health Microbiology Committee and serving on the Association for Molecular Pathology and PASCV Clinical Practice Committees, the IDSA Diagnostic Committee, and the FDA Microbiology Devices Panel.
Dr. Miller has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) and IDSA. As an AAM fellow, she chaired a colloquium on point-of-care diagnostics, served on the AAM Subcommittee on Elections, and currently serves as an AAM Governor. She has received several prestigious awards, including the ASM Award for Service, the NC Governor’s Award for Excellence in Public Service, and the ASM Award for Research and Leadership in Clinical Microbiology.
Beyond her clinical work as a medical microbiologist, Dr. Miller is engaged in clinical and translational research. Her research focuses on the development of accurate, cost-effective molecular tests for infectious disease, as well as evaluating patient and healthcare outcomes resulting from the adoption of new molecular technologies.

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Wade Stevenson

Wade Stevenson has over 25 years of experience in infectious diseases, molecular diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals. Wade was SVP Marketing at BioFire Diagnostics responsible for launching several diagnostic products. Previous roles include SVP Marketin at Roche, and SVP of Marketing and Sales at Visby Medical.

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Don Schaffner

Dr. Donald W. Schaffner is Extension Specialist in Food Science and Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. He has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and educated thousands of Food Industry professionals through short courses and workshops in the United States and around the world. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists and the American Academy of Microbiology. He has served as an Editor for the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology since 2005. Dr. Schaffner was the president of the International Association for Food Protection in 2013-2014. In his spare time he co-hosts a food safety podcast at foodsafetytalk.com.

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Scott O'Brien

Scott O'Brien is a senior business leader with over 25 years of global life sciences and diagnostics industry experience across numerous roles from R&D, to marketing and commercial and C-suite. Scott cemented his experience in the diagnostics field at GenMark Diagnostics and Specific Diagnostics. Scott led corporate and commercial strategies towards and after product launch, but was also instrumental in the acquisition of both companies. Most recently Scott joined the LEX Diagnostics board of directors and is focused on providing commercial strategy consulting services to IVD companies. Scott acquired his Bachelors in Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and resides in San Diego, CA.

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Gary Acuff

Dr. Gary R. Acuff holds the title of Director of the Center for Food Safety and Professor of Food Microbiology within the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University. Dr. Acuff’s professional memberships include the International Association for Food Protection, serving as President in 2008, as well as the American Society for Microbiology and the Society for Applied Microbiology. He is a member of the Editorial Committee for the 5th Edition of the Compendium of Methods for the Microbiological Examination of Foods and was a member of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food from 1992 to 1997. He currently serves as a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Food Advisory Committee. Acuff has published more than 80 articles in technical journals and has authored several chapters on food microbiology in various references and textbooks.

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